What is the personality profile of a light weight backpacker?

Sex: Male

Age: 29

Race: Dutch, Swedish

Marital Status: Married, no kids, ever!

Occupation: Architect

Location: Duluth, MN

Interests: All season backpacking, climbing (rock and ice), mountain biking, kayaking, c.c. skiing, reading, films, sketching, model building

Sex: Only with my right hand… Wait, I meant Male, scratch that

Age: 19

Married: Nope, dating

Occupation: Student at Arizona State which makes my….

Location: Tempe, AZ

Likes: Jeepin', Road trips, watching sports, butterflies, rainbows, clowns, ponies and romance novels with Fabio on the cover

Dislikes: Hiking, Backpacking, Trail running, mountain biking, car camping, kayaking, fishing, basically anything that takes me away from said list above (note: extreme sarcasm in use during this list)

Sex: Male

Age: 26

Race: English/American Indian

Marital Status: Married

Occupation: Wholesale Purchasing

Location: Birmingham, Alabama

Interests: Backpacking, Politics, History, Archaeology, Science

Sex: Male

Age: 70+

Marital Status: Married w/grandchildren

Race: Caucasian-Scottish

Occupation: Retired scientist/academic

Location: Rural SE Arizona

Hobbies: Backpacking, Mountaineering, Target shooting, Archery, Reading,Philosophy, Music and Gear making.

MBTI: INTJ

female
43
married, 1 kid in college
location: lake tahoe, ca. desolation wilderness is my backyard- the pct is 5 miles from my house thru the woods.

occupation: office manager- a job that demands my time in exchange for putting money in my bank account so i can do what i want with the rest of my time.

preoccupations: making stuff. currently, making fire with a bow drill. i like to make things i use: 16' kevlar canoe, my backpacking gear (everything except my thermarest!) clothes, the rug on my floor, etc. i like to fix things, too. i'm pretty much "homemade"

activities: flyfishing. hiking. skiing. canoing lake tahoe.

aspirations: spend 1 month in the woods, wandering the sierras. then maybe more!

mbti:istj

Sex: Male

Age: 30

Marital Status: Married w/4 dogs

Race: Mostly Irish

Occupation: Firefighter/Paramedic Baltimore City, Maryland

Location: Just outside Baltimore

Hobbies/Interest: Backpacking, camping, hiking, history of the fire service, reading, American Civil War, my ipod, dogs, cycling, tools.

Sex: Female
Age: Late 40ish
Marital Status: Single
Race: Appalachian American
Occupation: Medical Transcription
Location: West Virginia
Hobbies/Interests: Backpacking, Downhill and cross country skiing, fishing, making/tweaking gear.

is there a form or something? sex/age/marital status/hobbies/…

huh? a light weight backpacker is not a SKU.

anyway, as for the personality profile of the lightweight backpacker let me offer the following, though little enough of it describes me and probably even less of it describes you. regardless, near as I can tell (and this is from years of keen observation and practice) the personality profile of a lightweight backpacker is: irascible / impudent / contemplative / arrogant / exhuberant / musical / intolerant and intolerable / happy and friendly / conservative in viewpoint, often tending toward communism / compassionate / careful / reckless / attuned / competitive / mute / raucous / inquisitive / highly perceptive and uncommonly blind. and this is the just part of the list.

now, not all lightweight backpackers pack all these personality characteristics but we all pack more than one. and not all of these characteristics bunk well together as we all well know. I here offer the metaphor of the trail mix. nuts and raisins, all in one bag.

so, sorry, no profile. but if there is one personality attribute shared by all of us who value wilderness it is our personal imperative to seek out wild places, there to hone ourselves against momma earth and to, you know, rub our husks off against the rocks.

now that's personality.

:)

Lots of funny stuff so far. Sorry, I'm no comedian. Me…

Sex: Male

Age: 48

Location: Portland, OR USA

Marital status: married 17 years/ 2 kids

Occupation: Real Estate appraiser. Past jobs include fishing guide (Alaska) commercial fishing (Alaska) baggage handler with airlines, fire sprinkler fitter and general vagabond.

Race: western and northern European decent

Hobbies/interests: backpacking, fly fishing, discovering new (to me) music, martial arts point sparring, family and friends, tinkering with my 73 BMW 2002, gardening, BBQing, good beer and a good peaty single malt.

There were some 58 or so respondents to this survey…though not all of the resulting numbers will add up to 58 for particular categories.

These are very general groupings and observations and are not meant to offend anyone or to over generalize or stereotype anyone or group of people.

Some of the responses defied an easy category, but here is what I came up with:

Profile of a lightweight backpacker:

Male: 46
Female: 8

Single: 24
Married: 28

Ages:

Less than 21 yrs old: 5
21-30 yrs old: 19
31-40 yrs old: 10
41-50 yrs old: 10
51-60 yrs old: 4
61-70 yrs old: 2
71 or older: 1

Race:

Caucasian: 40
Asian: 2
Unknown/No response: 3

Please note: many who were multi-racial with Caucasian heritage were grouped as Caucasian. I hope that I offended no one in doing so.

In the vast majority of cases, Caucasian was of European decent.

Occupations:

This was hard to classify or group and forgive my generalizations:

Those who work in education: 8
Those who are currently students: 8
Those who work in IT: 4
Those in Science & Engineering: 6
Those in Military, Law Enforcement, Public Safety: 4
Those Retired: 4
Those in Health Care: 2
Those in Business/Sales: 7
Other: 5 (this ranges from authors, artist, pilot, carpenter, etc)

Well this was fun to see all of the responses and I leave it to you to draw any conclusions that you want.

The more interesting aspect of this has been being able to read people's responses and to see the details of their interest and lives.

There is a wide diversity among us and we all benefit from such a large pool of knowledge to draw upon.

Thank you for all of you who joined me in this whimsical quest for knowledge.

If there are any of you who wish to add your own information to this list, please feel free to do so.

Adding to this can only serve to allow your fellow BPLer's know more about you and you about everyone else here.

Thanks!

-Tony

Sex: male
Age: 35
Marital Status: Married, 3 great kids
Race: Cherokee/German (White boy)
Occupation: IT, systems developer
Location: South-East Ohio
Hobbies/Interests: Family time, backpacking, collecting music, booze and cigars, art, cold beers, movies, hangin with the dudes, takin' it easy (which never actually happens with 3 tots)

INTJ here as well.

As a fellow INTJ I find this thread fascinating, as a healthy majority of the responses are this Myers Briggs type, yet they only comprise 3.5% of the general population. I wonder what the most prevalent MB type would be for a "traditional" backpacker.

Perhaps it's the J that keeps those baseweights down…

female
44
happy single with some cats
european mountain mix living still in Europe
vet and writer
job, backpacking, canoeing, travelling, taking pics, reading, gardening (japanese garden), searching for simplicity and enjoy life

Sex – Male
Age – 50
Marital status – married, 3 underachieving children
Race – white. Came from England in 1692. Certainly mongrels by now.
Occupation – petroleum engineer
Hobbies – skiing, Boy Scouts, sailing, backpacking, various gun games, hunting.

Apparently from a generation that doesn't know what a MBTI is, or why you would want one.